Sliding doors are known in the art and can be found in a wide variety of settings including residential, commercial and industrial. For example, many barns and horse stalls use sliding doors which have advantages over swing style doors for the particular use.
Typical sliding doors have a stationary track mounted on the wall at the top of the door opening. The track extends over the door opening as well as over the area where the door is positioned when in the open position. The door is suspended from and attached to wheels, or trolleys having wheels, that move on the track between open and closed positions. To be slidable relative to the wall, it is appreciated that the door moves in a plane adjacent to the wall, e.g., in front of or behind the wall.
For many uses, it is desirable to be able to secure or lock the door in its closed position. While a variety of such mechanisms are known, many are insufficient to adequately secure the door in a closed position. This is particularly true in instances where maintaining the door in the closed position is of primary importance. Sliding barn or stall doors, for example, are often used to corral livestock or other animals within a barn or stall. Many of the latch mechanisms presently used, however, are easily manipulated by the animals to unlock the door, thus allowing the animal(s) to escape. Other type mechanisms are flimsy and unreliable.
Accordingly, there remains a need for a simple and relatively inexpensive slide door lock that provides an operating mechanism for securing the sliding door in a closed position, while preventing the door from being inadvertently opened by an external source. In particular, although not considering limiting to the instant invention, there is a need in the art for a latch mechanism to secure a barn or stall door in a closed position so as to prevent the door or latch from being opened by the animals contained therein. The instant invention addresses the foregoing needs.